|
|
ESBG congratulates the European Parliament on its formal adoption of the CRD IV Package, consisting of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) and the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD) IV, in Plenary on 16 April, with implementation starting on 1 January 2014.
The CRD IV Package is the European transposition of the internationally agreed 2010 Basel III Accords, which had been initially intended only for large cross-border institutions. ESBG Managing Director Chris De Noose stresses that “this package requires all European banks to hold more and better quality capital in order to strengthen their resilience while appropriately taking into account the specificities and structures of European savings and retail banks, through for instance an adjusted composition of Common Equity Tier 1 capital and deductions". He is pleased to note that “this recognition of the proportionality principle enables proper adaptation of rules to institutions’ size, complexity and the riskiness of their activities.”
Concerning the liquidity rules, ESBG welcomes the January 2013 decision of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision which foresaw a postponement of the Liquidity Coverage Ratio’s entry into force and the enlargement of the eligible assets. Nevertheless, it is paramount to remain vigilant during the observation period set up in the CRD IV package for the Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), as well as regarding the introduction of the long-term Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR). In addition, ESBG is very much concerned that the introduction of the discount factor on Risk Weighted Assets (RWAs) associated with SME lending remains permanent following the required reviews.
Indeed, these two latter aspects are crucial to preserving the capacity of banks to continue to lend to the real economy, in particular to SMEs, which rely on this financing due to their lower access to capital markets.